Chapter 93: Day 6: In the shadow, in the light

It was all too familiar. Floating on her back looking up at a fluctuating ceiling. Suspended in that hazy netherworld which lay between dream and reality, not completely unpleasant just disorientating.

"What is Washu up to now?" Ryoko thought lazily. She'd been poked and prodded by her Mother / Creator so many times you'd think she would run out of places to probe! Still the harder she fought, the sneakier Washu became about ways to collect her precious data! Ryoko had learned from experience that it was best to just lay quiet and take her lumps. After all, it was the fastest way to get out of here and back to...

"Tenchi?" her mind suddenly did a flip-flop as recent events began to unpleasantly reassert themselves. Remembering her last few brutal moments of consciousness with sudden acidic clarity.

"Why am I still breathing?" She mused, suddenly having an intimate understanding how a hockey puck must feel. Having lost count of how many battle-staves had impacted her skull. And that was just the ones she had seen.

"Gutless sons-a-bitches!" Her thoughts coalesced angrily.

"Couldn't take me in the open? Had to bush-whack me, after swimsuit queen softened me up?"

Evidently they had stopped the assault just short of killing her for some reason yet to be determined. It didn't make sense! after all this time, Ryoko could have sworn Nagi had finally given it up! They must have paid a hell of a lot of money for 'little miss bounty hunter' to let anything come between them and her vendetta!

Ryoko closed and opened her eyes several times trying to clear them.

"Just you wait till I get out of this friggen fish bowl!" She silently promised.

Despite her predicament she found a few moments of pleasure constructing violent revenge scenarios upon faceless hordes. If for no better reason than it allowed to focus her thoughts.

Now more in command of her faculties, Ryoko began focusing more on the environment around her pushing initial disorientation aside enough to realize she wasn't on her back looking up. Through the clear shifting liquid, it was difficult to make out any finite details beyond, what appeared to be a tank. As she studied the shifting mass of colors directly in front of her one thing became clear, someone was watching her!

"Bit o' peep show huh?" She mused dryly to herself. Thinking it couldn't be much of a thrill, her body must surly be a mass of bruises. She'd barely managed to register the presence however when she saw whomever it was turn and move beyond her restricted visual range.

"And I was just starting to enjoy myself!" She punctuated the event sarcastically.

The flippant thought just managed crossing her mind's eye when Ryoko felt a sudden definite 'shifting', an undeniable change in the liquid surrounding her. A sort of odd, thickening if she were to attempt a description. She was puzzling over this even as noticing, just above her head a surface was defining itself, slowly descending. All things considered, Ryoko found herself greeting breaking the surface with something approaching enthusiasm. Breathing liquid in a lab wasn't one of her fondest hobbies. Not that 'technically' she breathed at all.

From there the surface continued to lower about her form without her actually rising from it. Nor was the liquid draining away in any usual sense.

Whatever this fluid was continued instead to 'coalesce' becoming more gel-like even as it shifted. Reconfiguring it's mass until only her head and torso protruded into the open air from its surface to her back while maintaining an ever-increasing grip upon her limbs. The pressure exerted was insistently firm, never brutal. Becoming murderous only whenever Ryoko tried to pull free. She tried shaking her head, feeling her normally wild main lying flat against her spine was producing an unagreeable, almost itchy sensation. Only to suddenly feel something undeniably grab her by the hair from behind. She resisted for a few seconds before whatever it was simply overpowered, almost pulling her head back into the gelatinous mass behind.

"OK! OK!" She growled, forcing herself to go limp. "GOD DAMN IT OK!" Ryoko added, and was surprised when the mass actually responded, feeling the pressure instantly lessen, so long as she held still.

Having no other choice but to 'play nice', Ryoko begrudgingly began studying the room within which her prison was contained. Roughly hexagonal, about forty-ish across if she were to take a wild stab at it and composed of varying materials. None of which looked remotely metallic. In fact...

The far wall seemed to be composed mostly of living wood, complete with interwoven branches. Leaving little doubt in her mind the room was most likely of Jurian origin. That thought, chilling enough was washed aside focusing upon what floated just across from her prison. Suspended in a translucent sphere, nestled within branches extending elegantly from the wall before Ryoko, were her gems! Swirling in a slow orbit within the sphere the two synthetic power gems she'd created, shown somehow duller than the true one. Looking upon the impossible sight, feeling her blood turn to water.

Fate however gave her no time to ponder as the wall to her immediate left suddenly opened. Flicking reflexively that direction, Ryoko's eyes widened as cool humid air washed over her exposed skin from the corridor beyond. An instant before a cascade of sensations exploded against her perceptions. Her nipples stiffened almost painfully, for possibly the first time in her existence, Ryoko experienced actual goose flesh. The sudden experience was profound to the point her teeth started chattering, fear and wonder mixing within her so strong for a moment she clenched both her teeth and eyes tightly shut. Ryoko shivered. Her being grew quiet about her trying to absorb and quantify the sensation. The closest analog she knew was eating something cold but that no where approached what was happening now!

"Ah." She heard a soft melodic voice say. "At last we see what all the fuss has been about!"

Forcing her eyes open Ryoko drank in the figure standing poised before her.

At about six-two the woman was tall, willowy with skin the astonishing color of an afternoon sky except were the lines of her elegant musculature colored her a deeper azure. Hair white as purest Fuji snow cascaded like silk around aquiline feature, elf-like ears, higher swept than Mihoshi's more sharply pointed than her own, flanking high cheek bones. Surrounding twin pools of smoldering emerald fire. Elegantly dressed in formal Jurian robes, which parted when ring ladled hands found purchase upon ample hips as she starred critically back at Ryoko.

"You are so beautiful my dear!" The woman gasped, smiling delightedly. "The tales I've heard hardly do you justice!"

"And just who the hell are you Smurf queen?!" Ryoko snapped. Putting some belligerence to good use. It made an effective shield against the terror of being rendered so helpless. And she would be damned if they would make be afraid.

"I?" The woman's voice lilted, glancing shyly down as slender hands rose, for a moment cupping her own breasts lifting her gaze then again to Ryoko's. Her smile brightening as the thumbs of her fingers slid beneath the mantle of her robes, lifting the raiment free before allowing it to fall to the floor behind. Revealing in its wake a body that would make even Tsunami gasp. Barely concealed by a clinging, sand colored, deeply plunging affair so reveling, it could scarcely wear the term 'garment'.

Even given her current predicament Ryoko felt her eyes scan almost of their own accord, taking in the sculpted lines and ice cream curves of the body just unveiled.

"YOWZA!" She thought begrudgingly, "Girlfriend got it going on!" Giving silent thanks at that precise moment A certain young priest was not within eye shot.

"I, am Ena Ouoni." The woman continued, coy yet proud. "Royal consort of Azusa!"

"THE EMPEROR!?" Ryoko instantly gasped, coming to the conclusion right then and there, she wanted no part of whatever was about to happen. Panic lending strength, pulling hard as she could muster, she succeeded in almost freeing both arms! Before, whatever the glop holding her was, decided enough was enough. Lending a larger portion of its volume to sufficiently re-ensnare.

Ryoko had the dubious pleasure of feeling it almost rip her arms from their sockets as it forcefully restrained her back into a spread-eagled position. For several seconds the white-hot haze of pain did a fair job of blanketing her senses. To the point the next thing she became aware of was someone touching her face.

"IDIOT!" She heard the woman angrily snap. "Be more gentle!"

As her ravaged nerves slowly stop buzzing her brain with pain signals, Ryoko senses cleared enough to feel the blue skinned woman now lying against her. Noting as well that she seemed to be addressing thin air!